By Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2002
SEOUL — Over and over, television news programs play footage of a pigtailed 2-year-old in pink overalls watching in terror as her mother and grandmother, North Korean defectors seeking asylum at a diplomatic mission in China, are wrestled to the ground and arrested by Chinese police.

If a picture […]

By Choi Jung-hyeon
1. Why I Had to Leave My Home Country
During my thirty-seven years of living in North Korea, I was a loyal supporter of Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il. I didn’t know that my displeasure with the North Korean feudalistic caste system was gradually growing, and I was unexpectedly […]

By Rhyu Chi-sung
After having fled from North Korea, I stayed in Yanji, a Chinese border town where many Korean Chinese live, until the border patrol squad of Yanji arrested me. After taking all my belongings, including some amount of American money, they took me to the […]

By Lee Min-bok
Former Researcher at the North Korean Science Academy
Member of the Executive Committee
The Commission to Help North Korean Refugees
My life as a North Korean refugee began when I had to flee the country amid a row over my proposal that North Korea should embrace the private farming system, one that the Chinese government […]

By Kim Sung Min
On October 1st, 1995, I left my hometown, where I was born and had spent more than 30 years, with happy and sorrowful memories. Yes, it was and still is my hometown. But when I was leaving, there was no one shedding tears […]